Medicine Report

Alzheimer's and Music

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Avast!Via Metafilter today comes a thoroughly engrossing article about the cure for scurvy, which was found, lost, and found again, but not without a shocking amount of human suffering in the interim.  As the author points out, this is not just an interesting scientific and medical detective story - it is also a sort of parable about why the scientific process is important, and what happens when people go off half-cocked with incomplete evidence.

As everyone surely knows, scurvy was the scourge of long-distance travelers for hundreds of years.  In particular, the sailors crossing the seas during the expansion of the Western empire.  Arr!  
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Wash 'Em!Someone close to me recently had a skin wound diagnosed as MRSA.  I, of course, freaked right out.  Most of what I had heard about MRSA was the news media running around in circles frantically waving their hands in the air squealing "MRSA!!!  OMG MRSA!!!"  For all I knew at the time, it was the first sign of the End Times.

I went home, dabbed rubbing alcohol at everything that looked even vaguely suspect (working outdoors and with animals, I always have a lot of little cuts and scratches) and started reading up.  The truth is… somewhere in the middle.
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Breast Cancer RibbonIf you are a breast cancer patient, this could be some of the most useful information you will ever read: according to a recent study, a preventive mastectomy to remove a second breast that you believe MIGHT become infected later is not usually beneficial.

The study was performed at the University of Texas Anderson Cancer center. After analyzing more than 100,000 cases of women who had double-mastectomies, the results indicated that “except for one sub-set of breast cancer patients, they don’t need to do this.”
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Food-Borne IllnessesI just came across what is probably one of the most useful websites I’ve ever seen for those of you who are worried about food poisoning, salmonella, and e coli. The Food Poison Journal  contains all the latest information about which food products have been recalled due to health and safety issues.


Just two days ago, Tim’s Cascade Chips were re-called after it was discovered that they had been made with HVP (hydrolyzed vegetable protein), which can cause salmonella. If that’s not bad enough, the Randolph Packing Co. Inc., recalled as much as 96,000 pounds of beef products yesterday. Unfortunately, these are not isolated instances- there is a lot of unsafe food out there.
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DNAIf I were a man, I would definitely think twice about becoming a sperm donor for the simple fact that it is not as anonymous as it should be. Due to innovations in DNA testing, and general sleuthing, some mothers have actually been able to find out the identity of biological father of their children.


I came across an article today in Slate in which a mother described how she was concerned that her daughter had a Sensory Disorder and  was sensitive to sounds and walked on her toes. She came to the conclusion that it was necessary for her to track down the other biological siblings of her child, which she did through the Donor Sibling Registry and found other siblings with the exact same disorder.
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Are Your Kids in Jeopardy?The NYT just ran an article about the trend of teen-agers playing what doctors and teachers call “the choking game”.  which involves children and teenagers taking turns choking either themselves or each other in order to get high without the use of drugs.

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Report after report continues to prove that non-whites in America receive less care, and worse care, than white people.  Even when you adjust for income levels and health insurance.  This is appalling, but true, and it's hardly new - Congress officially acknowledged the problem in 1999, although obviously it existed a long time before that.  (Maybe forever?)
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In a final blow against the fictional link between vaccines and autism, earlier this month the Lancet officially retracted the scientific paper which started it all.  Dr. Andrew Wakefield, who had taken funding from a group of lawsuit-eager lawyers in order to scrape up the right findings, has now been officially discredited.  In the Lancet's own words, Wakeman's research and findings were "dishonest and irresponsible."

And in the wake of this, now it seems that Jenny McCarthy's son doesn't have autism!

McCarthy was interviewed for an article in Time Magazine which asserts that her son Evan actually suffers from a rare condition called Landau-Kleffner syndrome.  The biggest proof of this is that Evan has gotten better, when in reality there is no cure for autism.   Read more

Nicholas D. Kristof has another interesting editorial in the New York Times, this time about the link between environmental toxins (like phthalates) and autism.  Kristof focuses on the harmful chemicals (like BPA) which are components of plastic, but there is certainly no shortage of chemical evils in our lives.  And the data is beginning to show - surprise! - that being constantly bathed in toxic chemicals is not very good for us.  
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